


My Most Treasured Photograph

by justmarveling



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Female Steve Rogers, Gen, Nostalgia, family photographs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-08 06:49:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4294779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justmarveling/pseuds/justmarveling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In our newest feature in smithsonianmag.com, Captain America herself shares a treasured image from her childhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Most Treasured Photograph

_In this new feature of smithsonianmag.com, we ask celebrities to share their most treasured family photographs. Starting us off is Captain America herself, Stevie Rogers, with a rare glimpse into her Brooklyn childhood. _

The first time I saw it again, I wept. There are lots of "vintage" Captain America photographs floating around out there. Most of them (and I once paid a freelance researcher to find this out for me) are from the newsreels taken of the Howling Commandos. People cut up cast-off reels and printed stills from the individual cels. This isn't one of those. 

About a month after the Battle of New York, Pepper Potts called to let me know that one of Rebecca Proctor's granddaughters (that's Becca, one of Bucky Barnes' little sisters) wanted to get in touch with me. There were an amazing number of people who purported to have family who knew me way back when, but Amy Proctor was legitimate. We exchanged email addresses, and she sent me dozens of files of family photos she'd scanned. Amy, apparently, was the family historian, and she had stacks of Barnes family photos. There were a couple that she said I ought to have the original, and this is one of them.

Sitting on beach chairs are my Nana Rogers and Bucky's Grandma Barnes (I can't remember her first name; we always just called her Gran). Standing behind them are our mothers, Sarah Rogers and Winifred Barnes. Sitting in front, on the sand, are me and Bucky, making goofy faces at the camera. This must have been around 1928. I must have been 10, Bucky a year older. I don't remember which beach it was; it could have been Coney Island or somewhere else in Brooklyn, but I'm not sure. I think Bucky's da took the picture, but I don't know who would have been looking out for Becca and Julie (that's Bucky's youngest sister) if he did, and they always needed looking out for!

It's an amazing picture to me. Everyone looks so happy! My ma is somehow not at work. The Depression hasn't hit us yet, so even though we were all poor, we could still feed ourselves and have a few little luxuries. My Nana died a couple years after this picture was taken, and Bucky's Gran a couple years later. Ma and Aunt Winnie (that's what I called her) are smiling so wide here, so everything was really good right at that moment.

I remember looking at this picture a lot right after my ma died. All these people that I loved were in it, looking so pleased with the world, and ten years later, half of them were gone. When I first got the picture back from Amy, I felt completely different. Sure, everyone in it was gone but me (or so I thought at the time) but all I could see was the shining moment it captured. It wasn't the war or a news photo -- it was my family, the people I loved most and who loved me. When I wept, it was for happiness. It was getting back a little piece of myself: not Captain America but me, Stevie Rogers. I held it in my hands for days before framing it. I showed it to the other Avengers. I felt like I finally had some real piece of my life back.  
_\- Stevie Rogers_


End file.
